The Blue Woods

by Nicole Maggi

  Mr. Sands froze and stared at me. I slid my hands into his and squeezed. “It’s all right,” I said. “I’m the Falcon.”

  His jaw tightened as he sucked in a sharp, audible breath. “You’re the—” He glanced at Heath. “Are you—?”

  Heath stepped forward and held out his hand. “The Wolf.”

  Mr. Sands slid his hand out of mine and took Heath’s. “Of course,” he said softly. “How could I not have recognized those blue eyes?” He pulled Heath into a brotherly hug and patted his back. Then he slung his arms around each of us and propelled us deeper into the house. Lidia trailed at our heels. She was no longer grousing in Italian. She’d probably been struck speechless.

  A tray piled with a steaming pot of coffee, mugs, muffins, and toast sat on the low coffee table in the living room. Jenny sat on the couch, her feet tucked up under her hip, her hands wrapped around a cup of coffee. Her mom, Barb, sat cross-legged next to her, an untouched muffin in front of her. And sitting on the floor was a woman who looked familiar. I stared at her. She was a waitress at our favorite pizza place, Pizza Plus. When she saw us come in with Mr. Sands, she stood, her ginger hair tumbling messily to her tiny waist. “This is Cora,” he said. “The Eagle.”

  Somehow, the four of us found ourselves in a tight circle, crying and laughing at the same time. It was like long-lost twins finding each other in a crowded street. This was my family, as real and connected as Lidia and me. We were bound to each other for life by something stronger than blood. The Concilio had gotten it wrong. Knowing each other’s true identities made the bond even stronger, unbreakable. It was a stupid rule, I thought as Cora cupped my cheek and touched her forehead to mine. Every Benandante deserved to know who was fighting alongside them.

  “Who would’ve thought the fierce Falcon was a sixteen-year-old girl?” Cora said, pulling back a little to smile at me.

  “I’m almost seventeen,” I protested. “And who would’ve thought the huge Eagle was a woman no bigger than my thumb?”

  She laughed and hugged me again, until Mr. Sands—Jeff, he now insisted I call him—stole me away from her to hug me himself. I finally broke away from them and collapsed onto the couch next to Jenny. She took one look at me and burst into tears. “Jenny! What—?” But the rest of my sentence was buried in Jenny’s shoulder as she flung her arms around me.

  “My dad said two Clan members were missing. I thought you were . . .” She pressed her fist to her mouth, unable to say the word. “I’m so glad you’re okay,” she said instead, and hiccupped.

  “We did get into some trouble,” I said. I glanced around and realized that Lidia was gone; Barb had taken her into the kitchen, probably to get her out of earshot of the Benandanti’s conversation. I exhaled slowly, my chest fluttery. I was off the hook for the moment.

  Heath told Jeff and Cora about the Harpy and the Guild. He left out the part about Jonah, for which I threw him a grateful glance that Jenny caught. She kicked my foot. I shook my head at her. “Later,” I mouthed.

  “Nerina’s gone to the hospital to get Bree,” Heath finished.

  Jenny sat straight up. “Bree?” she asked, her eyebrows raised at me. “As in Bree Wolfe?”

  “Jenny,” her dad warned in a sharp tone. Jenny slumped back into the couch cushions, her eyes still on me. I nodded once in answer to her unasked question, that I would tell her everything later. “I expect you to treat her with respect and protect her secret like you’ve protected mine,” Jeff went on, his voice still stern. “She’s been through a lot.”

  When her dad had turned back to Heath, Jenny gripped my arm. “It was Bree?” she hissed. “The Clan member who was missing when we were in Massachusetts?”

  I leaned in close to her ear so I could whisper without her dad hearing. “Yes. But she’s not what you think. She’s our mage.”

  “What the hell is a mage?”

  Before I could answer, the doorbell rang. We all fell silent, straining to listen to Barb’s footsteps as she crossed to the window. A moment later she called out, “Jeff? I don’t recognize these people.”

  Jeff jumped to his feet. “They’re okay,” I heard him tell Barb, and the door swooshed open. I stood as Nerina entered the room. Her arm was wrapped around Bree, who still looked like she’d been run over by a steamroller. Nerina deposited Bree onto the couch and stood in front of the fireplace. The cozy, familial atmosphere in the room changed. The official Benandanti Clan had reconvened.

  Chapter Three

  Worst Idea for a Slumber Party Ever

  Bree

  I don’t know what magic Nerina pulled to get me signed out of the hospital, but somehow I found myself hobbling out the front doors into the gray morning light. I lowered myself onto a bench to wait for Nerina to pull the car around. Just the walk from the elevator to the sidewalk had winded me. My bones protested every movement.

  The pain I could live with. It was the uncertainty that was killing me.

  A sporty red Fiat whipped around the corner and squealed to a stop in front of me. Nerina bolted out of the driver’s side to help me into the passenger seat. “There’s a blanket in the back if you’re cold,” she said and buckled the seatbelt around me.

  I reached for the blanket on the backseat. Pain ripped up my arm and across my collarbone. I snatched my hand back, breathing hard in and out through my teeth. Nerina slid into the driver’s seat and handed me the blanket. “Thanks,” I managed and squeezed my eyes shut. I counted to ten as Nerina put the car in drive and pulled away from the curb. By ten the pain had subsided into a prickly ache up and down my rib cage. I opened my eyes and tucked the blanket around me. “So, where’d you get this ride?”

  Nerina glanced at me but didn’t answer.

  “Seriously? You managed to steal the one Fiat in all of Maine? Impressive.”

  “I’m going to return it.”

  “Why bother? The douchebag who owns this is probably too embarrassed to report it.”

  Nerina snorted. I let her concentrate on driving for a few minutes, but the instant we hit the highway, I put my hands on the dashboard. “Okay. You gotta tell me what’s going on. Heath left in a huge rush last night, sent in some redheaded chick who I can only assume is the Eagle to watch me, and then she peeled out of here too. Something big is up.”

  Nerina glanced in the rearview mirror, changed lanes so she could zoom past an ancient pickup truck rumbling along at forty miles an hour, and sighed. “We lost the Waterfall.”

  “What?” I sat up as straight as the seatbelt would allow. “How the hell did that happen?”

  “The Malandanti found me. They took me to the Guild, the same room where they held you. That’s why Heath left you last night. He and Alessia came to get me.”

  “Jesus . . .” I breathed and slumped down in my seat. After all our work, after overthrowing the Guild, they’d bested us again. “Well, you’re okay, obviously. Are Heath and Alessia okay too?”

  “They’re fine. They’re at the Stag’s house. That’s where we’re going.” She glanced at me again. There was something in her face, something shadowy in her eyes, something she wasn’t telling me.

  “What is it?”

  Nerina swallowed. Her hands gripped the steering wheel tight. I squinted at her; she was unsettled in a way that I wasn’t used to seeing. “The Concilio Argento was there. That’s why they were able to retake the Waterfall. Because it was all of them against the Stag and the Eagle.”

  “Are they all right too?”

  “Yes, yes, they’re fine.”

  “Then what is it you’re not telling me?”

  “When the Malandanti left us, they assigned one of their Clan members to guard us.”

  She didn’t have to say his name. I already knew from the way she could barely look at me. I looked away from her, out the window to the snow-covered farms that rolled past. “Just tell me if he’s alive or dead.”

  “He was alive when we left. But . . .”

  “When the Malandanti come bac
k and find you gone, who knows what they’ll do to him,” I finished for her. I closed my eyes, saw again that horrible basement room in the Guild, saw again Jonah’s helpless eyes as the Malandante mage tortured me, hurt me over and over.

  But if he were dead, if the Malandanti killed him, surely I would feel it. He was my twin; there was no way he could die without me knowing. I would feel it like a punch to my gut, like a stab to my soul. Nerina was saying something, something that sounded far away. I pulled myself back to her.

  “. . . helped us escape.”

  “What?”

  “I said, he helped us escape.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Wow, Nerina. That must be really hard for you to admit.”

  “It is not—” She clamped her lips tight. “He surprised me. We would not have gotten out of there without him. Perhaps you and Alessia are right about him.”

  “Maybe you should pull over before I die of shock.”

  “Oh really, now.”

  I grasped the door handle as she zipped around a black SUV. “If the Malandanti find out he helped you . . .”

  “We made it look like we overpowered him. I really don’t think they will kill him. They’d be down a Clan member, and they can’t afford that.”

  “They could just replace him—”

  Nerina shook her head. “It takes time to train a replacement. Time they don’t have in this war.” She took a deep breath. “However, before Fina—the Harpy—left, she said they were leaving him there because he was wavering. So while I do not think they will kill him, I do think they will keep him under constant watch—probably in the Guild building—and try to reprogram him.”

  “Reprogram? Like, brainwash?” My mind went to an A Clockwork Orange place, Jonah strapped in a chair with his eyes pinned open, forced to watch Malandante propaganda for days on end. “We have to get him out.”

  Nerina swerved the car onto the exit for Twin Willows, nearly colliding with the guardrail. “Absolutely not.”

  “He’s in danger! He—”

  “He’s a Malandante! We’re not risking our necks to save a Malandante.”

  “Even one who saved your sorry ass?” I slammed my fist against the window, ignoring the shot of pain that bulleted through my ribs. “I thought I was pretty freaking crystal clear about my priorities when I joined the Benandanti, Nerina.”

  “You need to be patient.” The car slowed as we merged onto the country road that led into Twin Willows. “We need to reclaim the Waterfall, defeat the Malandanti. Then we can get him out.”

  “But he could help us beat the Malandanti. Who’s to say he couldn’t fight on our side instead?”

  Nerina flexed her fingers and resettled them around the steering wheel. “He cannot fight on our side. Not while he’s still a Malandante.” She took her gaze off the road and looked at me for a long moment, before she had to look back to avoid a crash. “It is physically impossible for a Malandante to fight against his Clan. Their auras prevent them from doing so.”

  I stared at her. How did I not know this? I’d pored over all of her damn books and not one of them had ever mentioned this. “For real?”

  “I’ve—seen—it happen.” Nerina’s skin was pale, and not just because she’d been living in an underground lair for the last couple of months. “Bree, I know you found out about turning a Malandante into a Benandante. Alessia told me, and she also told me that Jonah wants out. But what you read about—the way it has to happen—is impossible. You need to get it out of your head.”

  Her whole body was tense, like she was about to take flight. I narrowed my eyes at her, but she wouldn’t turn my way. She was hiding something. I was sure of it. Well, she wouldn’t be hiding it for long. I was a freaking mage, after all. I had ways of finding things out.

  Jenny Sands’s dad was the last person I ever expected to be the Stag, but I had to give him credit for letting the entire Clan descend on his house unannounced. Alessia patted the spot on the couch next to her when I walked in. Jenny sat on her other side, and I saw her eyes widen as I made my way to the couch. I’d checked the mirror before we’d gotten out of the car; I knew what I looked like: purple bruises encircling my eyes, broken blood vessels staining my skin, swollen fingers, medical tape across my chest that peeked out from my shirt’s neckline . . . I lifted my chin a hair as I passed her. She could sit on her little popular-girl pedestal all she wanted. I was a goddamn hero.

  As soon as I settled next to Alessia, I leaned in close to her ear. “I have to talk to you,” I muttered.

  “Me too. Later.”

  “I suppose introductions are not necessary,” Nerina said in her I’m-in-charge tone at the front of the room. “Although I guess I should introduce myself. I am Nerina.” She paused for a moment, as if she expected applause or something, but everyone just stared at her. I choked back a laugh.

  “In any case,” Nerina went on, “we should inform the rest of the Concilio that we know each other’s identities.”

  “Why?” Alessia asked.

  “Because we tell them everything that goes on in the Clans,” Nerina said. “They should know that we’ve been compromised.”

  “It’s a stupid rule,” the redheaded Eagle said.

  I raised my eyebrow at Alessia. “Her name’s Cora,” she told me in an undertone.

  “Cora’s right,” I said loudly.

  Nerina narrowed her eyes at me. “That ‘stupid rule’ has saved countless lives,” she said. “Even you would have revealed our identities had they tortured you long enough.”

  “Hey!” I tried to sit up straight, but the overly squishy couch cushions wouldn’t let me. “I resent that. I would’ve held out.” I pointed my finger at her. “And actually, by your reasoning, if the Concilio knows we all know each other’s identities, then they could be tortured for that information too.”

  “She’s right,” Jeff said.

  Nerina looked thoroughly annoyed that we’d out-reasoned her. She threw her arms up in the air. “Fine. I won’t tell them. Let’s get past this. We need to figure out our next move.”

  “We should go in tonight,” Mr. Sands—Jeff—said. “With a complete Clan, I’m sure we could retake it.”

  “But we are not a complete Clan,” Nerina said. “We are missing the Lynx.”

  “We have you,” Jeff replied.

  “Yes, but technically I am not a member of the Twin Willows Clan. The spell will not work,” Nerina said. “Besides, we will be even stronger if we can find the Lynx’s replacement and go in with six of us.” She ran her hand through her hair, making the ends twitch with static. “It may even take more than that.”

  “What do you mean?” Cora asked.

  Nerina and Heath exchanged looks. “You saw the Harpy at the battle the other night,” Heath said.

  “Their entire Concilio Argento is here,” Nerina added. “We cannot go up against that many Malandanti, even as a complete Clan.”

  “But why is their entire Concilio here?” Cora asked. “The Waterfall isn’t the only site they’ve lost. Why haven’t they spread out to the other sites we control?”

  “Presumably, they will,” Nerina said. “The only way we will know if they have left is if one of our Concilio members tells us they’ve been spotted at one of the other sites. So until that happens—”

  “We wait,” Jeff said.

  “We wait, and we train the Lynx’s replacement as soon as he—or she—is Called.” Nerina paced in front of the fireplace against the wall. “We heal,” she said, nodding at me, “and we plan. The Malandanti will be out for blood in the wake of the Guild’s downfall. We cannot underestimate what they might do.”

  “Um, I have a question,” I said, raising my hand slightly. “Where the hell am I supposed to stay? I can’t go home. They know where I live.”

  “Neither can I,” Alessia said. “Or Heath, or Nerina, or my mom. When they found Nerina’s place, the whole farmhouse became compromised.”

  “Someone can stay with me,” Cora
piped up. “I think my place is still safe.”

  “But it’s in Willow Heights,” Jeff said, naming the next town over. “I’d feel a helluva lot better if everyone were close by.” He scrunched his face up, looking around the room. “You can all stay here.”

  “That’s going to call attention to you,” Heath said.

  Jeff shrugged. “The farmhouse has mold,” he said. “Black mold, deep in the walls. You’re all staying here until they get rid of it.”

  “My mother would eat canned tomato sauce before she’d admit to black mold in her house,” Alessia said.

  “Well, then she’s going to eat canned tomato sauce, because that’s all we have in this house anyway,” Jenny said.

  “Nerina and Cora can share the upstairs guest room. Lidia can take the pullout in the den. Heath can sleep on the couch. And Bree and Alessia can bunk with Jenny.” Jeff winked at the three of us on the couch. “You girls will be up all night giggling anyway.”

  I tightened my jaw. I did not giggle. I glanced over at Jenny, who had folded her arms across her chest and was shooting her dad a daggered look. Between us, Alessia slumped deep into the cushions. I was sure she was thinking the same thing I was. Eight people crammed into a three-bedroom house. She, Jenny, and I sleeping in the same room. Nerina without her fancy espresso machine, forced to drink drip coffee. If the Malandanti didn’t do us in, that certainly would.

  “I’ll let Barb know the arrangements,” Jeff said. He pressed his lips together. “And I guess we oughta call the school to tell them you three will be out today. That might raise some eyebrows.”

  I stared into the cold, ash-swept fireplace. The school probably cared more about me being absent than my parents did. They hadn’t reported me missing in the two days I’d spent in the Guild, or come to the hospital. Dad was probably holed up in his office, trying to figure out his next move to cover his ass now that the Guild was in shambles. And Mom . . . She was probably totally obliterated. Both their kids were gone. What the hell was wrong with them? I hardened my jaw. I could take care of myself. I’d proven that in the basement of the Guild, holding out against that bastard Malandante mage.